Offering the Extreme
by Venus Smurf
Summary: Toboe isn't as innocent as everyone thinks he is...so why does he keep pretending he is? ToboeXTsume One-Shot


A.N.:  Well, this is just a short little ficlet that I wrote on the spur of the moment.  It's my first Wolf's Rain fic, though, so be gentle.

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 "Offering the Extreme"

We've been running for so long.  Sometimes I forget what my life was like, before this.  We run, and we run, and we run, and though often I think we'll never have anything to show for it, we keep running.  We don't have a choice, really.  We've gone too far, and we have nothing left to go back to anyway.  This is our life, now.  Even I know that.

I know it, but I can't always remember why we do this.  What were we thinking, to embrace this pitiful existence?  I'd thought, at the time, that we had good reason to leave our city, to band together and run off into the wilderness.  Maybe we did, and maybe we were just deluded, or afraid.  I don't know.  I only know that we're the strangest group I've ever heard of.

There are four of us, in the pack.  Four wolves, four searchers for Paradise, and we all have different roles.  Kiba is the leader, the one with the drive and the determination to find Paradise regardless of the cost.  He's the one who will keep us going in spite of everything, who will hold us together until we can reach our destination.  Though his determination often makes him seem cold, he is the fire keeping us moving no matter what happens. 

And then there's Hige, our resident stomach-with-legs.  Hige is…well, I don't really know what he is.  Maybe, if Kiba is our fire, Hige is the cold dose of reality we need just to survive.  He's the most practical of the four of us, though you wouldn't think it, to meet him.  Hige often seems very one-track minded, concerned with only two things—women and food.  On the other hand, he's the one always making sure we have enough food and shelter and rest.  Kiba would drive us to exhaustion, to starvation, without Hige.  Maybe that's why they're best friends, because they balance each other out. 

As for Tsume…gods, where to begin, with that one?  He's the oldest of us, and quite probably the strangest.  Even to us, who know almost nothing about each other, he's an enigma.  We don't know what drives him, what has made him accept us and fight beside us.  We don't know what he's looking for, though in his own way he's as driven as Kiba.  Tsume seems to be searching for something, though I don't think even he knows what it is. 

I don't know what to make of him.  He's full of contradictions, is Tsume.  Sometimes he seems to hate us, to despise us for clinging to this fantasy of Paradise, but at other times he's as desperate as we are to find it.  He's hot and cold by turns, angry one moment, distant and almost apathetic the next.  He never shares anything of himself, not willingly, and yet he's put his neck on the line so many times to save us.  I don't know why he keeps coming to our rescue—to _my _rescue—so often.  I don't know why he protects us.

And then there's me, Toboe.  I suppose that I'm the Dreamer of the group.  I'm the innocent one, the naïve one.  I'm the pup, the little kid, the one who can't understand why the world is so ugly, so hurtful.  I'm the one who can't protect himself.  They think I'm weak.  I know they do, all of them.  They think I hold them back, and even I don't understand why they let me tag along at all.  Maybe they thought they had to protect me because I'm a wolf and there are so few of us left, and maybe they just wanted another of their kind along for the journey.  I know they've often regretted bringing me.

They don't know how wrong they are, about me.  Maybe I'm not a natural leader, like Kiba.  Maybe I'm not the warrior Tsume is, or as street-smart as Hige.  Maybe I _am _a Dreamer, a little kid who hasn't seen enough of the world to know he should be afraid of it.  I might even be useless, to this group of wolves, but they forget that I'm also a survivor.  I'm the youngest of us, and I grew up the most sheltered, but I've still seen and lived through more than most kids.  I grew up in a world where I didn't even know what I was, what I could do.  Learning to move beyond that, teaching myself as much as I could and never having even the slightest bit of help—_that _made me a survivor.  The others just don't see it.

Wolves aren't supposed to be capable of deception.  In a world of kill-or-be-killed, everything should be pretty straight forward, black and white.  I think it's mostly like that, for the rest of them.  They never pretend to be anything they're not.  Kiba has never tried to make us believe that he cares about anything besides Cheza and Paradise, and nobody has to wonder what Hige's motives are.  Even complicated Tsume, with all his contradictions, can usually be relatively easy to understand.  I don't know what made him come with us in the first place, but he's all about survival now, and he doesn't pretend that he's not.  He isn't here for friendship or camaraderie or whatever it is that holds the four of us together.  He's just here to live, maybe to find something better than what we left behind. 

For the three of them, the facts are clear.  We either survive or we don't.  It's that simple.  There's no room for doubts, no need for questions.  Now that they've accepted this path, they never wonder if they can go back and undo their choices.  They never wonder if they're doing the right thing.  I'm not like that, though I wish I was.  I joined them without a second thought, but now I question myself all the time.  I question the choices I've made, question my own integrity each time I deceive them.  And I am deceiving them, every single day.  They just haven't realized it, and they probably won't ever.  They don't see that I'm not as innocent as they think I am.  True, I'm not as hard as Kiba or as cold as Tsume, but I'm not a child, inside.  I just make absolutely certain that they don't know how much I'm hiding from them.

They know so little about me, though they think they know everything.  They think I had the ideal childhood, something that's rare for any wolf.  They think I let myself be a pet to some little old woman, that she provided for me and sheltered me and kept me from suffering even a little bit in exchange.  They think I'm innocent because I never had to be anything else. 

It used to be true.  Grandmother did shelter me, love me.  She took care of me…and then she died, and I was left with nothing at all.  I was suddenly ripped from my home, from the love I'd always had, and then was forced to stand alone against a world that cared nothing for me.  I was forced to grow up, when she died.  I couldn't be the little kid anymore, and I won't ever be again.

Tsume and the others don't realize how long I was on my own.  They think Granny had just barely died when they found me, that I hadn't been on the streets long enough to suffer from anything but mild hunger.  They're wrong about that, too.  I may not be a fighter, but I prowled the streets just like any other wolf.  I've been hunted, hurt.  I've been lonely, too.  I just don't let them see it.  Sure, I get tired of being insulted, get tired of the constant derision over my lack of usefulness, but I have my reasons for playing the part of the innocent.  I have my reasons for putting on this act. 

Really, though, the reasons have nothing at all to do with Kiba or Hige.  They don't need the Dreamer.  Kiba would keep going even if he was all alone.  Sure, he probably wouldn't have made it this far without the rest of the pack, but I'm not helping him all that much.  I can't fight for him, can't provide for him.  I'm just a hindrance, to Kiba.

And Hige doesn't really need me.  If I was gone, it'd just be one less mouth to feed, one less person to worry about.  He doesn't have to feel needed, or anything like that.  For Hige, I'm nothing.  So why do I do this?  Why do I set myself up for ridicule, make myself into such a bother for the only wolves I've ever really known?  The answer is simple, actually.

I do it for Tsume. 

The others don't need me.  Hige and Kiba have survived on their own for countless years, and they probably could have continued to survive, even alone.  They don't need companionship, or love…but Tsume does.  He's hurting inside.  It's what drew me to him in the first place, what made me stay with him after that fiasco with Leera and the bird.  It's what made me want to go back for him after I ran into Hige and Kiba that day.  I couldn't leave Tsume, because even though I might be younger than the rest of them, I sensed how much pain he was in.  I knew, even then, that he needed me. 

Tsume has been hurt, in the past.  His loneliness and his pain shine out of his eyes, even when he's angry, but I'm the only one who really sees it.  Kiba and Hige are too focused on their own goals, their own needs, to really care about Tsume the way he needs to be cared for.  They don't understand that Tsume needs to be healed.  They don't understand that he needs to be loved, the way I was once loved. 

I can give him that.  Grandmother may have thought I was only a pet, but she gave me real love, unconditional love.  The other two have never had that, so it's probably understandable that they don't know how much Tsume needs it.  Still, that only makes it so much more important. 

Love is the reason why I keep pretending to be an innocent.  Tsume has been hurt so often in the past, has been betrayed and damaged too many times, and now only from a child would he accept such unconditional affection.  Children don't, after all, know any better.  They don't know to keep their distances, don't know when to stop caring.  They just don't know not to love.  It's not in their makeup, and even though I'm not really a child in my heart, I still need to pretend that I am one.  I need to be an innocent for Tsume's sake.

So I go to the extreme, completely burying the adult in myself for him.  I offer everything he isn't, everything he doesn't have—friendship, affection, trust.  I give him love in return for his anger, innocence in return for his hardness.  I've become his opposite, because that's what he needs.  Of course, there's a problem with that, too.  I think Tsume needs more than just innocent affection.  He needs the deepest, strongest love anyone can give him, and I can't do that if he sees me as being just a child.  The kind of love he needs is the forever kind, the kind only a lover can give but that a child certainly can't.  Tsume needs to know that he's cherished, that someone else loves him enough that they'd be _broken _if anything ever happened to him.  He needs to know that he's literally the center of someone else's life.  It's the only way he'll ever be completely healed.

I can give him that love, if he'd let me.  I already cherish him, already center my entire existence on him.  He's everything to me, but I can't let him know it, not yet.  I don't think he's ready.  It's a huge commitment, just to be loved.  Even if he never returned my affection, even if he was disgusted by it, he'd still have to live up to it.  He'd still have to prove himself worthy of that kind of devotion, and I don't think he can do that, yet.  I don't think he's ready for the burden my love would be.

It's hard, though, not to tell him.  I want to shout my love to the skies, tell everyone I meet that I have this kind of richness in my life.  Loving him has been a joy, to me, if only because after Granny died I'd started wondering if I would ever have that kind of feeling again.  It's been a gift, loving Tsume.  Even if he never knows it, even if he continues to berate me and shout at me and tell me that I'm useless, nothing can take my love for him from me…and I love him all the more for it.

Then again, my love for him lets him hurt me more than he might have.  He rejects me constantly, rejects the friendship I offer him.  He tries to push me away, and having him run out on me would be the same as losing the biggest, most important part of myself.  I can't live without him anymore, and knowing that hurts me, too.  It's painful, loving someone who doesn't love you back.  It's probably one of the most painful things anyone can ever experience.

I won't pretend that it's easy, loving him.  He's not an easy man to care for.  He's bitter and cynical, sometimes even hateful.  He always looks for the darkest things life has to offer, and that's not something I'd ever thought I'd want, in a mate.  I always dreamed of finding someone more like me, someone I can settle down with and grow old with.  I dreamed of having someone to laugh with, but I don't know if I could ever do that with Tsume.  Even if he does, eventually, get over his hurts, I don't think he's made for laughter…or for settling down.  He's not the type, and I sometimes struggle to accept that.  I struggle to accept the fact that even if he does love me back, he won't often tell me so.  He won't let me know that he loves me.

And he scares me, a little.  Tsume's emotions have been bottled inside for so long that I sometimes wonder if one day he'll just explode, and take me out with him.  He'll burn me up, with his love, leave nothing left of myself.  I don't know if I want that.  I don't know if I want to let him dominate me, control me, and I think he probably would.  He'll be a jealous lover, an insecure lover.  He'll always question me and my motives, often doubt me.  Is it worth it, when I'd have to give so much of myself before I could even get this much from him in return?

Maybe I'm jumping ahead of myself.  I haven't even told him that I love him, haven't even come close to telling him.  For all I know, it might be years before he's even ready, and that's another problem.  Can I wait that long?  I'm young, but I have needs of my own, and I don't know if I can be that patient.  Can I wait for him for years and years, never knowing if my waiting will even be worth it, in the end?  I might spend the next ten years panting after him, trying to heal him, only to be spurned in the end.  I don't think I could survive that. 

I often tell myself that I should just give up, that I should just write Tsume off and walk away, but I know I won't.  I can't leave him, not yet, probably not ever.  I'm afraid that his love will eat me away, but I know it'd be far worse if I didn't even try.  I'd spend the rest of my life drowning under regrets, under might-have-been's, and that'd be a thousand times worse than the bleak years of waiting in front of me.  Just as I can't drop the child act, just as I have to act weak and innocent for his sake, I can't leave him.

He needs me too damned much.  


End file.
